Christening of the Forge

Posted on May 19th, 2011 by Tonia 2 Comments

Recently, Mike bought a used forge and anvil, fulfilling his long-time dream to learn how to blacksmith. These tools, along with his welding kit, will provide us with a way to fix garden/household tools when they break and to make new tools when we need them.

Mike’s first project is building a broad-fork, which we need right now for planting in the garden. They’re expensive to buy, so I’m pretty happy that he is making one instead of buying one. Mike ventured over to the local scrap-metal yard and picked out some steel rods to shape into fork spokes.

Maybe you can tell from the photos; Mike is a kid in a candy shop now that he finally has his blacksmithing tools. A few years ago for Valentine’s Day when we were first dating, I got him a blacksmithing lesson with a man in Duluth who has his own shop…and ever since then, he has dreamed of this day. In preparation for the first lighting of his own forge, Mike made his own charcoal bricks, and brought home a huge amount of used veggie oil from Patsy’s Bar & Grill {you plunge the red hot metal into cold veggie oil to cool it down after it has been shaped. The pores of the metal absorb the oil, leaving a smooth finish.}

It was a momentous occasion, so we broke out the beer and chips to celebrate.

And a certain furry friend from next door came over to sit under the warm forge and wait for us to drop a chip…

2 Comments

  1. Terry says:

    So cool! Can’t wait to see the finished product!!

  2. […] yeah, remember yesterday’s post? This beautiful broadfork is the finished product. It saves your back when tilling up the ground, […]

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